Just Be Glad We Made It Here Alive
by Echante
Summary: Derek and Meredith are having a baby, and obviously Addison needs to come to Seattle for that.


For the sake of my sanity, we are going to pretend Lexy Grey does not exist. Also, I realize its been awhile since I've written anything substantial. Don't expect much more because I've pretty much given up on this. Addison and Mark are, apparently, both in comitted relationships with people who seem better for them (but really aren't) and you the fans are slowly disappearing. But this is like a last hurrah. And please someone who hasn't subscribe to the community because we just got surpassed. It makes me sad.

* * *

It was a dark day, lit by candle lights, and a strange concoction of people was sitting around the birthday cake. Birthday hats sat on the heads of every attender, cocked awkwardly on heads that were sizes too big. At the center, sat a baby girl, Jenny they called her. Her hands clapped together happily and she grinned widely. Her face was the only smiling one. Beside her, her parents argued quietly over the placement of the candles, and the rest of the guests wore looks that were vaguely mutinous.

"Can we leave now?" One of the guests asked, Christina Yang, glowering with anger.

"No!" snapped Meredith, the girl's mother, "You promised!"

Miranda Baily eyed the growing clouds above hopelessly and turned back to the mother, "I don't know Grey, there seems to be something up with the sky."

Meredith Grey covered her child's ears and hissed, "Today is her special day, and you all promised that you would be here! So can you please, at least try and act like you are a little bit happy for our child? You people are her family!"

Mark Sloan snorted loudly and Callie Torres cracked a smile but Meredith chose to ignore both of their actions and glared at the party instead. Everybody muttered something akin to agreement and Meredith sat back with a satisfied "humph." Mark shot a look at Derek which was returned with a weary sigh. Meredith was losing it, his look said. I know, said Derek's sigh.

When the party finally was able to move around, Mark followed Derek into his house and began helping him grab beer bottles to pass around. When they were alone, he asked the other man simply, "What's wrong man? Everybody's here, cheer up."

Derek glanced at him sharply and then drew in a breathe, "Are they though?"

Mark looked at him as if he'd lost it as well, "What?"

"Is everybody here?" Derek asked him earnestly.

"You're not talking about…" Mark began.

"I just," Derek tried to explain, "It just doesn't feel right you know? It's not that I want her back, it's not that I'm in love with her…" Mark kept his mouth shut tightly, but he seemed to relax slightly when Derek said those last words, "But the truth is when the two of us hang out, it almost seems as if something is missing. We're introverts, you and I; we used to rely on her to draw us out. She made us seem alive. She would have made this party seem alive. That's all. I just miss having her around at times like these."

Mark nodded, "I get that man."

And then Derek looked sharply at him, unexpectedly and suddenly asked, "Do you miss her?"

Mark tried to struggle his way out of the question, he laughed, drawn out and fake, "Me? Sometimes," he said shrugging, "Not much."

Derek looked at him with almost pitying eyes, "You don't have to lie Mark, just because it's me, this hatchet was buried long ago."

Mark sighed, "It gets better day by day," he said, "sometimes I don't remember her at all."

Derek doesn't speak for a moment, but Mark recognizes the silence as thought, finally he says, "Maybe that's not such a good thing Mark. Maybe it's not healthy to forget such an important moment in your life."

Once again, Mark tried to write it off, pretend like it didn't matter, "It wasn't that important."

Derek looked at him, studying his face, and sighed, "I know what she meant to you Mark, and I've known you since the beginning of time. I know what she meant and why she was always yours and never mine. And I think it is okay now. I think I've maybe made my peace with that. It's not good to forget the goodness in your life. Try to hold on." And with a satisfied nod, he opened the door to the backyard and began handing out drinks.

Mark lingered for a little bit longer, trying to digest the words that he had just heard. 'She was always yours and never mine.' He was sure he understood what Derek had just admitted. He wasn't really sure about anything in that moment in time.

* * *

Life continued after that day, Derek didn't bring up Addison again and Mark worked very hard to avoid thinking about that conversation. Trying to decrypt the meaning behind Derek's words was all too frustrating, so he ignored the problem, shoved it down with the rest of the shit he stored in the basement of his mind.

But for some reason, it kept resurfacing. He began to hate Derek for even bringing it up. He began to hate Derek for missing her. How dare he? After all they had been through because of that animosity. How dare he miss her?

And how dare he, Mark, even think that he might have a chance of winning her back?

He still didn't understand what Derek meant when he said that Addison was 'always yours and never mine.' He strained his mind trying to remember ever having any ownership of Addison that came previous to Derek's marriage to her. He couldn't come up with anything.

He tried to get Callie to solve his problem and as usual she laughed and simply said, "Why don't you just ask Derek you dingus?"

And he was back to square one.

* * *

The answer came to him one day, Derek volunteered it during a fishing trip and Mark was glad as hell that he didn't have to ask. "You know, the first time we met, Addison and I, she was crying."

Mark looked up calmly, but his heart was racing, he had been dying to talk about Addison since their conversation at Jenny's birthday party. "Oh yeah?" Was all he said, hoping to push Derek along.

But Derek took his sweet time, slowly moving his fishing pole up and down before continuing, "I never wanted to admit it to you when she and I were married. But the reason, I guess, that I was so mad at her when I caught you guys, was because that was a deep insecurity of mine. I knew that I had been pulling away. I knew that I neglected her. And I would have been able to forgive her for an indiscretion. But on the day I met her, she was crying because she was in love with you. She told me everything. She was in love with you Mark, and she knew you were an ass and it killed her. And when we got together, I always tried to keep you at bay, I was always jealous whenever you two were alone together."

Mark didn't reply, trying desperately to hide his despair. The entire time, he could have had her. They could have avoided this whole mess. Or could've they? He wasn't sure. He had been young and arrogant then, but the first time he let her go… Well he still remembered the loss of her like it was yesterday. And it seemed as if he'd let her go a million times since.

"Mark?" Derek looked over at him quizzically when he was silent for five long minutes. "Are you okay?"

To be honest, Mark didn't really know what to feel, let alone what to say. Instead, he just nodded slightly and turned his face towards the lake. The river was silent and he tried to draw strength from the calm. None came.

"I don't…" he finally stuttered, "I don't understand."

Derek shrugged, "I don't know really either, but that's my side. I don't know what happened between you guys back in Med. School. I tried so long to comprehend, but you were best friends I guess. That's all I really got out of her. You were best friends and then suddenly you kept her at bay."

He remembered the day he started to push her away, but unlike Derek, he remembered the reason. Derek had come to him and pleaded, and like a good friend, he had agreed. And all that time, he could have been happy.

* * *

Meredith waddled around the OR huffing like a hen, glaring at all of the interns who scrambled to get out of her way. She landed with a thud on a chair besides Derek's desk and he looked up at her, eyes dancing with laughter. "It's not funny," she pouted, "I'm fat."

Derek shook his head and kissed her quickly on the lips, "Honey, that's not possible," he said.

"I am!" Meredith protested, "I've gained about a bajillion pounds, I can't stop eating this stupid crap," she tossed a can of peanut butter across the floor but then look horrified at what she did. "That was still half full!" She told Derek frantically.

Derek walked over to where the peanut butter can lay and picked it up, returning it to its owner, "There you are my little baby, please don't cry."

Meredith pouted, "Just because you can walk like a normal person, doesn't mean that you have the right to condescend to me like that!"

Derek laughed at the face she was making but it was made obvious to him a second later that this was the wrong choice, when Meredith got up and wacked him on the head. "Derek!" She wailed frantically, "I am freaking out here! The baby was supposed to be here yesterday! And guess what? No baby!"

"I'm sorry honey," he tried to pull her in for a hug but she pushed him away wrinkling her nose, "What do you want me to do?"

"Call Addison," she snapped, sniffing, "I need Addison."

Derek smiled his winning half-smile, "At your service my dear lady." And he walked to the phone, whistling.

* * *

Addison did not like being back in Seattle. It was definitely not her cup of tea and she absolutely hated Derek for forcing this on her. She knew that Meredith was having problems and whatever but did that really warrant a visit from the wicked ex-wife? She could be on the beach right now! She could be warm right now. She hated her life.

The rain was really all too much, it never made up its mind, and just when she thought she was safe without an umbrella, another round of water dumped on her head, ruining her hair and her outfit. She was really high maintenance she realized, but she deserved it. She was the best after all.

The minute she set foot into the hospital, she sped up and walked as fast as she could towards the NICU. She hated awkward encounters, and there were sure to be more than a few if she didn't hurry her ass up. She started to breathe more easily when she rounded the corner to the room where Meredith was being held, but she shouldn't have. Mark lay predatorily in ambush.

"Hello." He grinned at her, and she couldn't help but compare his sharp front teeth to those of a jaguar.

"Mark," she nodded at him curtly, the last time the two of them had seen each other, had been a painful, idiotic mess that she did not want to relive. Sixty days. It was so unlike her to lose a bet.

And she knew he hadn't lost it, fifteen years of knowing someone will do that to you. When she had time to sit back and reflect, she knew that there was no way that Mark Sloan would have lost the bet. He was too competitive, too set in his ways. He would have seen it through, even if it killed him.

So she had been the loser that day. But somehow, Mark had lost so much more.

"Addison," he said, almost gleefully. "How are you?"

"Good," she replied suspiciously, "What brings you to this corner of the hospital?"

Mark feigned hurt, "My God-child is about to be reviewed! How could I not be here?"

Addison had to laugh, "Reviewed?"

Mark shrugged, "Well, whatever you call it then."

Addison studied his face for a moment before shaking her head, "Fine. Well then, are you coming or not?"

Mark almost leapt into a jog, "After you my dear." Addison frowned. He seemed too giddy for his own good.

* * *

After Addison assures Meredith that all is well with her pregnancy and that sometimes doctors can be off about things like due dates, Meredith breaks into an overwhelming smile and hugs the other doctor so hard that Addison wasn't quite sure what to do. Both Derek and Mark laughed as Addison struggled frantically to get out of Meredith's grasp. But the younger woman held on for a good five minutes. When she finally let go, she was beaming so brightly that Addison had to double check her memory to make sure she hadn't accidentally slipped her something while doing the examination.

"You have to come to dinner with us tonight," Meredith informed her authoritatively.

"Oh," Addison hesitated, "I don't…"

But she was cut off by Meredith's rough insistence and in the face of a very violent pregnant woman, she agreed to dinner.

* * *

Dinner was pleasant enough; she could visibly see the eagerness coming off of Derek in waves. He desperately wanted the baby to arrive, and not just because Meredith was an abusive pregnant woman. She couldn't help but feel slightly jealous that he had found his woman. But it was all water under the bridge and she couldn't change anything, and even if she could, she doesn't think she would.

The problem was after dinner, when Derek and Meredith left to clear the dishes and tuck Jenny into bed and Mark and Addison were stuck at the dinner table together. He smiled at her and she only wanted to run away.

"So," he began with his trademark smirk, "What are you doing after this?"

She looked at him incredulously, "I'm going to sleep! It's almost ten o'clock!"

He laughed, "Honestly, that is the saddest thing I've heard all day. We used to stay up until three, no problem."

She shook her head, "We're not in med school anymore."

"I know," he said, "But we're not dead."

"Mark. I honestly think that you never grew up. After all these years, you are still sixteen years old, drinking beer on the swings of the neighborhood playground, hiding from your parents."

Mark wrinkled his nose, "No. I would never sit on those disgusting things, with these jeans?"

Addison laughed, "You sir, are a snob."

Mark scoffed, "This? Coming from you?"

"I never said I wasn't."

"Come," he said taking her by the hand, "Let's be slobs together."

* * *

They left the house without telling Meredith or Derek of their departure and all Addison could think about was how rude that was. Mark on the other hand, was busy trying not to smirk too overtly for fear of being smacked.

"Where are you taking me?" Addison asked, staring at the road with a horrified look on her face.

"To the best place on earth," he assured her. She groaned when they pulled into a Dick's burger place.

"Honestly Mark? Do you have any idea how much grease is in these things? Plus we just had dinner!" But Mark had already bounded up to the window and was ordering for the two of them.

When the cashier handed Mark the food, he wandered back to the car, handed Addison a burger and a milkshake, and then promptly started the car again. "Where are we going now?" Addison asked, eyeing the milkshake suspiciously but sipping in spite of herself.

"Well obviously, we need a place to park. There's a lovely cliff up by Ann Arbor with a beautiful view of Seattle.

"I feel like I'm sixteen," she grumbled but didn't argue, letting him drive them to the edge of Seattle.

She has to admit the view is breathtaking. They sit in silence for a few moments, just looking over the sky.

There are so many things left unsaid and he doesn't want to say them at this moment. So there is just the intake and output of air sitting between them and understanding. There was something magnetic about them together and he feels himself drawn into the moment. Already, the rest of the world seemed to disappear. The problem for him, was never when he was with Addison. He never thought about cheating when they were together. The reason he strayed back in New York, was because of the loss of her. He hadn't seen her in days and she had dropped a huge bomb on him. He was disgusted with the way he handled it. But he wasn't the only one who made mistakes. Some things needed to be accounted for.

"Let's talk us," he said finally, taking one final slurp of his milkshake. She drew closer to her side of the car but she didn't argue. She owed him that much.

"Derek told me how you two met." He didn't look at her, hoping to God that she didn't notice how scared he was. When she didn't reply he decided to continue, "I asked you out at least a million times back then. You said no every single time. I don't understand."

Addison bit her lip and responded carefully, "You were also an asshole back then. I couldn't take the risk."

Mark scoffed, "You could never take that risk Addison, that isn't something old."

"Well you didn't give me much choice did you?" She answered indignantly, "You slept with everything that moved Mark. Everything. How was I supposed to trust you?"

"I thought you could tell," he said, shaking his head, "You could always tell with everything else, when I'm lying, when I'm hiding something. I thought you knew that I was hopelessly in-love with you. And no one else Addison. Never anyone else."

"Well I didn't!" She said angrily, "because it looked to me like I didn't matter to you. I was replaceable Mark. There was always someone else. That's not how I want to feel! I can't feel that way, it hurts too much. You hurt too much Mark."

And it happens like it always happens, suddenly and without warning. One moment they are fighting and the next moment they are together. It makes no sense in the context of normal people, but to them it was the norm.

She wakes up the next morning with a head full of regret. He drives them home. They don't speak again for another nine months.

Until one day, she calls him and out of the blue she says, "You should meet your daughter."

And then, he has another foot in the door.

Bit by bit he forces his way in. Bit by bit she lets him.


End file.
